The Kingdom of Back

by Marie Lu

  My words trailed off under my mother’s stern gaze. “A boy,” she murmured. “And does your father know who Johann is?”

  “He did not like him very much. Please, Mama,” I whispered, turning my eyes down. “He is writing from Frankfurt.”

  I didn’t know what she saw in my face to make her take pity on me. Perhaps my expression triggered for her memories of long ago, of an age when she was not yet married. Whatever the reason, she sighed, shook her head, and stepped off the carriage, holding her hand out to take Sebastian’s outstretched one.

  “I will see to it,” she said over her shoulder to me.

  And sure enough, by the time we reached our flat with our luggage stacked around the door, and Papa had stepped out in a hurry to the archbishop’s court, Mama found me alone in the bedchamber and handed me three brown envelopes, written in a curling script.

  I glanced up at her, relieved, but she did not speak. Instead, she squeezed my shoulder once, then left the room and quietly closed the door. Outside, the muffled sounds of Woferl playing the clavier wafted to me. He would be preoccupied for a while yet, so much had he missed his instrument. My attention shifted back to the envelopes in my hand. I sat with my back to the door, so that I could stop anyone who might want to come into the room, then fluffed my skirts out around me and pushed a finger underneath the first envelope’s flap. The wax seal broke with a single pop.

  The handwriting on the letter inside matched the script on the envelope itself—curling and beautiful, the writing of a cultured boy—and I found myself smiling as I read it.

  To my Fräulein Mozart,

  Do you know, when I returned home to Frankfurt, the very first thing I did was sketch what I remembered of you? I am sketching a great deal. I’m afraid my art is not as miraculous as yours, but I am doing it all the same, drawing just as you may be composing.

  My father has decided to send me to law school here in Frankfurt. I’d wanted to find a university farther away, but staying in Germany will not be so bad, and I can hope to receive letters from you more frequently.

  I think of you often. Sometimes I imagine I will catch you standing outside our local bakery shop, or out in the square, just like I’d seen you that day in London. But then I suppose I am just a simple young man, with optimistic thoughts. Please tell me if you’ll come to perform in Frankfurt again. I will wait for you.

  Until we meet again, I will be your hopeful

  Johann

  I was glad that no one was here to see the blush on my face, but I touched my cheeks and did not feel ashamed of it. I folded the letter and reached for the second. Outside, Woferl finished playing one menuett and began another, one I’d never heard before. Perhaps he was making it up as he went. I didn’t dwell on it as I eagerly began to read Johann’s next letter.

  To my Fräulein Mozart,

  You may not know it, but word has reached Frankfurt that you and your family have taken the Dutch completely by surprise, and that they cannot believe their good fortune. I heard of this in passing on the street. Think, Nannerl, that you have as a young woman already earned such popularity as to be mentioned by strangers in passing! I am more astonished and impressed by you than anyone I’ve ever met.

  I am writing a poem. I have discovered that my writing skills are quite a bit stronger than my painting. I am relieved that you have never seen my art. I should be embarrassed.

  If you are ever in Frankfurt, as you know, I will always be at leisure to see you.

  Johann

  I leaned my head back against the door and closed my eyes. Johann could not know that anything he heard on the streets about me was always solely in reference to my brother. Still, the brightness leaking from his words warmed me. The dream I’d once had of us sitting under a night sky now came back to me, as fully formed as if it had really happened.

  I let myself savor it until I heard Woferl finish his second menuett and begin playing a third, a melancholy piece in a minor key. Then I broke the wax seal on the third letter and began to read.

  I flung it away in fright. A soft cry escaped from my lips.

  My Darling Fräulein,

  You have helped me. A bargain is a bargain. Come to me in Vienna, and I shall take you to the ball.

  There was no signature, but there did not need to be. This was not a letter from Frankfurt. This came from a forest under moonlight. The wildness in Hyacinth’s voice was here in his words, in every jagged, hurried line. Even though I had never seen his handwriting before, I recognized it.

  Outside, Woferl’s menuett lifted in a crescendo. The notes tumbled after one another, beads on a glass counter.

  Somewhere in my mind echoed a laugh, a sound of the night.

  I took the letters and put them carefully back in their envelopes. Then I hid them in my trunk, underneath a pile of clothes. Later, I would burn them all.

  Hyacinth was calling me back.

  THE GHOST ON THE PARCHMENT

  That evening, Papa burst home from the archbishop’s court in a flurry. His mouth was pulled in a tight line.

  Woferl, Mama, and I looked up in surprise from the dining table, but it was Mama who recognized with a single glance everything in our father’s expression, for she darted up from her chair to rush to his side. She took his hat before Sebastian could, then touched his shoulder to comfort him before hanging up his coat.

  Papa eyed the dishes on the table with a withering gaze. “Fish again?” he muttered. He leaned a hand against the back of his chair and shook his head, over and over, unsatisfied with something. His eyes scanned our home, searching for something he couldn’t quite place.

  “What is it, Leopold?” my mother finally asked.

  “This flat is so cramped,” he complained, waving a hand in annoyance at the foyer. “I hadn’t realized how small it was until we returned. Look, Anna, at how we can barely fit all our luggage in here.”

  “There’s plenty of room, Papa,” Woferl said. “I don’t mind it.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Papa replied. “You are still a small boy.” It was rare to hear him short with my brother, and I leaned in, curious and intimidated. His eyes jerked to me and held my gaze. “Nannerl, though, is turning into a young lady. And here you two are, still sharing a room.”

  Fear slithered cold into the marrow of my bones. I could hear the unspoken words behind it. The older they are, the less magnificent they seem. I would not be a miracle child for much longer.

  Mama leaned over to him and put her hand on top of his. “We can certainly give Nannerl her own room,” she said, still searching for the root of Papa’s mood.

  Woferl looked at our mother in shock. “Why?” he asked.

  Mama frowned at his interruption. “Woferl. You are twelve. You cannot continue to stay in the same room as your sister—it’s not proper.”

  My brother glanced at me, expecting me to protest. When I didn’t, he tightened his lips. I could see the fear in his face at sleeping by himself, left alone to his nightmares and midnight visitors. Perhaps he was still running from Hyacinth in his dreams. I thought of the beasts that had been prowling the French countryside and imagined the faery boy’s sharp teeth digging into my brother’s flesh.

  “Yes.” Papa nodded at my mother’s words. “It’s decided, then. We’ll have to arrange accommodations for Sebastian in the next building. Nannerl can take his old chambers.”

  Woferl and I exchanged a glance. What would haunt him at night without me there?

  He looked down in silence at his dinner. Before my illness and what cracked us apart, he might have protested loudly. Now he twirled his fork against his dish and broke his fish into pieces. Somewhere deep in my thoughts, a figure watched him curiously with a tilted head.

  Mama watched Papa closely, picking up something else under his temper. “There has been some news,” she finally said
, “that has been unfair to you.”

  At that, Papa’s shoulders sagged. “It is absurd,” he answered after a while. “I received no letters, no warning at all.”

  “What has the archbishop done?”

  “They have stopped my salary, Anna, due to my extended absence. Now that I am back, they have lowered my pay another fifty gulden.”

  Mama stiffened at the revelation. “Fifty gulden,” she breathed. “And no reason for it?”

  “Only that we have been away,” Papa replied, “which he knew about in advance. He will not agree to us leaving again.”

  “And Herr Hagenauer?”

  He rubbed the crease between his brows, as if it might come out if he did it hard enough, that it might solve his problems. “He has agreed to give us another month to catch up on our rent. No more.”

  A lowered salary. Our unpaid rent. Papa’s complaints about my age. Soon my parents would need to start talking about the matter of my dowry, too, another expense to weigh down the family. I could look into my future and see my path laid out clearly before me. My father would approve of a man who I could be matched with. He would ask for my hand in marriage. I would marry, and like my mother, I would bear children to carry on my husband’s name, leave my family behind for his, and look on as Woferl headed off into the glittering world of operas and concerts and noblemen eager to commission him for his music.

  The thought of my predestined future made me light-headed. I could not imagine life changing beyond what it currently was—could not picture a time when I wouldn’t be riding beside my brother in a carriage and playing before a court.

  I thought of my father up late at his desk, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Would he linger there tonight, long after we’d all gone to bed?

  “Perhaps you should have a talk with him,” Mama was saying. “The archbishop can be a reasonable man.”

  “He is still skeptical of Woferl’s talents. He says that we have no reason to be running around the courts of Europe with what he deems a—a”—even the mere thought made Papa’s cheeks redden in anger—“a traveling circus.”

  “What does he want?”

  “Proof.” Papa’s face darkened even more. “As if he has not already heard Woferl perform, and Nannerl accompany. As if he has not already witnessed their miracles for himself! And he calls himself a man of God!”

  “Leopold,” Mama said sharply.

  Papa knew he had spoken too much, and his voice hushed immediately, his eyes darting once to the window, as if the archbishop could hear his insult all the way from the court. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I have agreed to his request.”

  “What kind of request?”

  Papa looked to my brother. He seemed almost apologetic. “The archbishop wants to commission an oratorio from our Woferl.”

  Mama studied her husband’s face carefully. “This is good news, isn’t it?” she asked, knowing it wasn’t.

  “He wants it in a week,” Papa said.

  A week. “It’s impossible,” I whispered out loud before I could catch myself. Impossible, even for Woferl.

  Across the table, Woferl stared intently at Papa, the circles dark under my brother’s eyes, his face like a burning wick with the hope of pleasing our father. “I can do it,” he said in the silence. “Please. I already have the most wonderful harmony in mind.”

  Mama didn’t answer or disagree. We all knew that there was no use in it. Papa had not even mentioned a payment from the archbishop for the oratorio. It meant that the payment would be Papa being allowed to keep his salary.

  As if he’d heard my thought, our father turned now to look at me. In his eyes, I saw the same light as on the day when he’d returned with the finished, bound volume of my music, ready to deliver it to the Princess of Orange.

  I didn’t know what came over me then. The spirit of Hyacinth stirring in my thoughts, perhaps, or the memory of what I had demanded from him. The recklessness of already having lost and knowing I could not lose more.

  Anger that had been waiting in some corner of me, waiting for the right time to emerge.

  I tilted my chin high, my eyes on my father’s, and held his gaze like a challenge. He raised an eyebrow in surprise, but I did not back down. What could he do to me now, anyway? I’d been through the worst already. My life was charted before me, and there was little I could do to stop it. What difference did it make now for me to push back?

  So I did not lower my stare. With it, I said, You know what you want to ask of me. And if I help him, you will have to acknowledge my music, my true talent.

  You will have to admit what you did.

  My father looked away first. Mama tried to console him by putting her hands on his shoulders and whispering something close to his ear. He would have none of it. “I am retiring to our room,” he said. Before Mama could respond, he had brushed past her and hurried off in the direction of their bedchamber, his dinner forgotten.

  Later that night, Papa called me into the music room and whispered to me by candlelight. “Nannerl,” he said, his voice strangely subdued. “Woferl cannot finish such a work in eight days.”

  “I know,” I replied, because it was true, and sat calmly with my hands in my lap, a shawl draped about my shoulders. I could tell my father wanted me to offer my help willingly, suggest that I work with my brother.

  Instead, I was silent. My eyes stayed level with his, willing him to ask first. I had summoned the strength to challenge him earlier—I could not back down now.

  Papa hesitated, his hands fidgeting restlessly. He was weary, the lines on his face pronounced tonight. He kept searching for the right words to say. I watched his eyes settle again and again on the window. Even though I knew he could not possibly be seeing Hyacinth, I still felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck, could sense the faery’s presence in the room.

  Finally, I said, “What does this have to do with me, Papa?”

  For an instant, my father’s eyes softened at me, and with their softness I felt myself lean instinctively closer to him, trying to remember this rare moment.

  “You write in a style not unlike your brother’s,” he replied at last. His words were not stern, but reluctant, as if he was voicing a thought he had kept quiet for a long time.

  The silence in the room weighed against us. I stayed frozen, unsure how to respond. His words echoed through me like a bell. This was it, his admission of what I’d done.

  I wrote like my brother. I wrote. It was an acknowledgment of my volume of sonatas. Papa was telling me, without saying it directly, that he knew that music was mine. The quiver of candlelight trembled against my folded hands, disguising the shudder that coursed through my body.

  “How do you know this?” I asked him quietly.

  “Nannerl,” he replied. His eyes fixed on mine. “You know how.”

  You know how. I looked around the music room, its shadows stretched and shaking from the candles. Any doubt I might have felt over what had happened now fell away. Here, at last, was his admission that he had indeed taken my music with intention, had put my brother’s name on my work and published it.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I said.

  “Would it have made any difference?” he mumbled. “Except to make you miserable sooner? Would you have fought me? It is the way it is.”

  He did not like coming to me like this, vulnerable in admitting to me the truth. I found myself thrilled by his discomfort. For once, I was not the one apologizing to my father, seeking his approval, trying to find a way to appease him. Now it was his turn. I let him shift, his eyes first meeting mine and then darting away in frustration, trying to settle on anything else but my unspoken accusation.

  “Why do you do all of this, Papa?” I asked. “Our lessons. Our tour. Sacrificing your own standing with the archbishop. What is the reason for it? I know it is about the mo
ney. But that cannot be the whole of it.”

  His posture was stiff and hunched, his fingers woven against each other. I waited patiently until he finally found his response.

  “Do you know what I thought I would become, Nannerl?” When I shook my head, he said, “A missionary. My parents thought me a future priest, that my calling was a divine one.” He was silent a moment. “For a long time, I thought that my entire purpose in life had been to become a missionary, and that I had failed it. Music and composition? I am good at it, but I am no lasting figure.” He looked down at the creases in his hands. “Then I heard you and your brother at the clavier. I knew what God had put me on this earth to do. In a way, I have become a missionary. There is no greater purpose for me than to ensure that you are heard by as many as possible.”

  I studied his bowed head and realized how old he looked. In that moment, I felt sorry for him. I believed my father, but I did not think he understood himself as well as he thought. He wanted me to be heard, but not by name. He wanted me to be seen, but not for what I could create. And he thought himself a missionary, an ambassador of God, when what he really wanted was to validate himself.

  The satisfaction I’d felt earlier at his admission and his vulnerability began to fade. I’d gotten what I wanted from him. Now, as I stared at his aging face in the candlelight, all I wanted to do was shake my head. Underneath his harsh exterior was just a pitiful man, mired in insecurity. I sighed. The thought of dragging this on suddenly brought me no joy.

  “I’ll help him,” I said.

  My father glanced up at me, surprised.

  “I’ll help him,” I repeated. “It will be hard, but we can do it.”

  Papa opened his mouth, closed it, and searched my gaze. He did not smile. I waited, wondering if I might catch a glimpse of guilt, some semblance of an apology on his face.

  But he had already admitted too much for one night. In the next instance, he leaned back and furrowed his brows. “Of course you will,” he said. The authority had returned to his voice just as I had retreated to my meek position, the daughter at his command. “I want you and Woferl to do nothing else in these eight days, to go nowhere, until you have finished the oratorio. I will check on you both twice a day, at morning and at night, and your mother will bring you food. If Woferl tires, you will take his place.”